Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are now backward compatible on Xbox One

Hideo Kojima’s stealth-action classics Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, arriving in the form of the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, are the latest titles to join Microsoft’s ever-expanding list of backward-compatible games on Xbox One.

It’s been a distinctly Konami-flavoured few months for Xbox One backward compatibility, with the Silent Hill HD Collection and Zone of Enders HD Collection recently arriving on the console. Bundle number three, the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, launched digitally on Xbox 360 in 2012 and gathers together Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. It’s not to be confused with the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which released a year earlier in the west, and also included Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Both numbered entries in Kojima’s legendary series are, of course, stone-cold classics. Metal Gear Solid 2 released on PS2 in 2001 and scored a Eurogamer 9/10. “It doesn’t represent the pinnacle of gaming,” said Tom Bramwell, “but it does offer something truly unique and consistently innovative… There won’t be another one of this calibre for several years”.

Metal Gear Solid 3, meanwhile, earned itself a Eurogamer 8/10. “Even as the credits scroll up the screen, the game is still waiting to spring another surprise on you, as it always is,” said Tom Bramwell at the time, “but the crucial difference between the storytelling of Metal Gear Solids 2 and 3 is that in the jungle you always genuinely think you know what’s going on, only to have your interpretation turned upside down five minutes later.”

Better still, unlike the Silent Hill HD Collection and Zone of Enders HD Collection – which both fared poorly in their transition to Xbox 360 – the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is a decent porting effort, upgrading the originals with 16:9 presentation and targeting 60FPS. It is, in other words, a perfectly satisfying way to enjoy Kojima’s classics.

The Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, if you don’t already have it, is still available to purchase digitally from the Xbox Store, and costs £14.99/$19.99 USD.